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| Topic | Tom reads through the Bolo Family Manga Collection (spoilers) |
| Tom Bombadil 05/22/18 6:47:30 PM #32: | Azumanga Daioh, Vol. 2 (of 4) https://imgur.com/a/xixHusj This volume marks the first appearance of Chiyo-chan's dad, a strange cat-like creature who shows up in random places. We're also into the second year, and Kagura joins the class and the main cast. Our special revolves around trying to cure Osaka's hiccups. We also see Osaka, Kagura, and Tomo bond over their terrible grades. Kimura's perfect wife makes an appearance as well, and there's a second special just of Chiyo's PoV going through a normal day. Forgot to mention yesterday that we met Mr. Tadakichi, Chiyo's Great Pyrenees. He's a good boy, and big enough for Chiyo to ride him. He's solely responsible for that being one of my favorite dog breeds (not that it takes much) I can't put my finger on what separates out Azumanga's characters from others. I think they just feel a bit more complex than what we usually get these days? I'm not gonna go calling this some sort of masterful high art, but I do feel like there's more to the girls than just plucking the next four moe tropes off the assembly line. Yeah, Chiyo's a loli, but she's smarter than most of them, and yet has struggles that a kid would be expected to have in this situation. Sakaki has the hidden girly side, but she's not particularly mean otherwise, and her foiled attempts to pet cats and have cute things are a unique twist. Tomo....okay, Tomo's a bit more of a standard issue charmingly dumb tomboy, but that is one of my favorite archetypes so I'll let it slide. I also don't feel like it's about fanservice or moe. I'm not opposed to either of those, but it's nice to have a slice of life manga about girls where it's not jammed down my throat. Some of the more detailed drawings get a little male-gaze-y (moreso than I remembered), and there are occasional discussions of boobs or Kimura doing pervy things, but the main 4-panel content doesn't really objectify them at all ever. This manga has a lot of my favorite characters, but none of them have ever been waifus for me because that's just not the point. Speaking of which, more character profiles! Sakaki: Might have been my favorite character if I had been introduced to this in 2018. She's reasonably smart, very good at sports, and tall with a nice figure. She's got her own fangirls (especially Kaorin, who just misses the cutoff of importance to get a writeup) between that and her detached demeanor. That said, she's actually very soft and girly, she just doesn't really let anybody see that, and her shyness is interpreted as aloof coolness. It's a running gag that she always wants to pet cats but they just hate her and bite her or run away. Then she comes in all scratched up and people think she was in a gang fight or something. Those are the kinds of misunderstandings that happen with her constantly. She's a good kid, and somewhat protective of Chiyo-chan. Kagura: The sports kid of the bunch. She hasn't done much yet here, but will be a main character for the rest. She's very competitive with Sakaki, even though Sakaki usually manages to beat her despite not really caring. She's not the brightest kid academically, but seems to have a BIT more social awareness than Tomo and Osaka. Sometimes she's the straight man to the dumber characters, and sometimes she's the dumb one to the smarter ones. IIRC, the tan she gets in this book stays for the rest of the series. My rating: 9/10 Perhaps the nostalgia has worn off because I didn't feel this one AS much. It's also a tiny bit more fanservicey between Kagura showing up and Kimura getting more time. I was gonna write about how there's no sexualization at all but I can't now >_> --- Look at all those chickens There's a hunger in the land, there's a reckoning still to be reckoned ... Copied to Clipboard! |
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